The German Emperor Bailed—So You Forged a New Reich?

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

Dense gunfire ripped through the sky as the Albatross fighter spat twin tongues of flame — like two scythes — carving clean through the left wing of the enemy bomber ahead.

With its wing shredded, the bomber instantly lost balance and spiraled straight into the ground.

Göring glanced at the falling target, then yanked the stick back, pulling the nose up to climb and hunt for his next victim.

The sudden appearance of the German fighter wing clearly caught the British off guard.

After getting chewed up by ground anti-aircraft fire earlier, their formation was already a little ragged.

The escort fighters failed to spot the German planes in time and never got a proper intercept going.

Which left their bombers sitting almost completely exposed in the Germans’ gunsights!

Compared to those fortress-like heavy bombers of WWII, World War I bombers were fragile as hell.

Even the Handley Page O/400 — a heavy bomber with a max takeoff weight of 6 tons — had almost no armor anywhere on the airframe. Machine gun rounds sliced through it like a cutting torch, punching holes through the fuselage with ease.

The first exchange was a bloodbath for the British.

At least five heavy bombers went down to German fighters, with two more damaged — trailing long black smoke as they limped back toward Entente-controlled territory.

Göring didn’t get greedy. After scoring his hit, he broke off, climbed back up, and locked onto another bomber.

After one burst sent it down, he rolled sideways and cut hard into another dogfight — putting his sights on the enemy fighter that was chewing up his wingman’s tail.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

The twin LMG 08/15 machine guns in front of his cockpit spat fire again, shredding the enemy fighter into a thousand pieces mid-air.

In barely a minute, Göring had downed three enemy planes — showing exactly why he was a top ace.

There was a reason he’d beaten out so many aces to command the 1st Fighter Wing.

When it came to air combat, he was as good as any of them.

Seeing their bombers falling one after another, the British panicked.

The escort fighters charged at the Germans recklessly, desperate to cover their bomber formation.

If the German fighters kept going after the bombers, they’d get jumped from behind and take unnecessary losses.

"First and Second Squadrons — climb and intercept their fighters! Third Squadron — keep driving their bombers west, away from the battlefield!"

Göring made the call instantly, adjusting tactics on the fly.

The German planes split in two — two-thirds went up to block the enemy fighters, one-third kept hammering the bombers to stop them from completing their mission.

A vicious dogfight erupted over Liège Fortress.

Down on the ground, soldiers from both sides poked their heads out of their trenches and stared up at the sky, stunned by the spectacle.

For most of them, an air battle of this scale was something they’d never seen before — equal parts new and terrifying.

Both sides’ fighter pilots were hardened veterans. They all knew how to kill an enemy with the simplest, most efficient moves.

From the moment the fight started, it was pure bloodsport.

They chased each other through the sky, pushing themselves to the absolute limit, with planes falling left and right.

Because they’d split off some planes to attack the bombers, the Germans were slightly outnumbered.

But every German pilot was an ace — including two super-aces with over 50 kills each.

Combined with Göring’s cool-headed command and his constant covering fire for his wingmen, the battle slowly tipped in Germany’s favor.

Meanwhile, in the other airspace, the German pilots hunting bombers had it way easier.

Sure, the bomber gunners fought back desperately, trying to drive off or shoot down the planes attacking them.

But the German fighters were small, fast, and nimble — hard to hit. They danced around the bombers, striking again and again from the enemy’s blind spots.

This wasn’t a fair fight.

Most of the rounds from the bomber gunners went wide. Only a lucky few found their mark.

The German fighter pilots, though, barely had to aim. One burst at a target that big and they’d hit something.

In just a few minutes, several more bombers went down.

And to make things worse, the bombers weren’t just dealing with enemies in the air — they still had the ground guns to worry about!

Once their own air force joined the fight, the anti-aircraft batteries on the ground smoothly shifted targets — pointing their barrels at enemy planes that had drifted away from the German fighters’ airspace, to avoid hitting friendly aircraft.

The pilots in the sky clearly understood what the ground crews were doing. They deliberately herded the enemy bombers toward the densest pockets of AA fire.

Bombers of this era were slow, weakly armored, and didn’t fly all that high.

The German AA guns didn’t have proximity fuses, so their hit rate wasn’t great.

But with sheer numbers, they could still rack up serious results when they concentrated fire on a single target.

Less than half an hour into the fight, the Entente soldiers watching from the ground had gone green in the face.

Watching their own planes keep falling out of the sky, they looked like death warmed over — their morale plunging right along with the wreckage.

By the time the Germans’ second and third waves of fighters arrived over the battlefield, the outcome of the air battle was already decided.

When it was over, the Germans had lost 8 fighters and had 7 damaged — but they’d shot down 45 enemy aircraft, including 15 bombers and 30 fighters.

That loss stung hard for the British. Especially losing 15 Handley Page heavy bombers — that was a tough pill to swallow.

The British had only produced a little over 200 of those things. Dozens had already been shot down in earlier fighting, leaving just over 100 in service.

This one battle had wiped out nearly a tenth of their remaining fleet — plus another dozen or so damaged and needing repairs. The losses were brutal.

The battle report hit the Emperor’s desk almost immediately. After reading the telegram, Wilhelm wasn’t surprised by the overall results — but Göring’s performance caught him completely off guard:

"Wait — Göring’s actually this good?"

Wilhelm’s impression of Göring had never been great. The guy’s antics during WWII made it pretty damn hard to think well of him.

But in this timeline, watching Göring fight like that completely changed Wilhelm’s opinion. He could barely connect this man to the fat, bloated version from WWII.

Maybe something happened later that turned him into that.

That being the case, he couldn’t just write the guy off based on old stereotypes.

Reward the ones who deserve rewards. Promote the ones who deserve promotions. Wilhelm wasn’t going to hold him back — but he’d keep an eye on his growth.

Maybe in this timeline, Göring could avoid whatever tragedy twisted him into a different man — and become a truly outstanding air force commander instead.

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